


The Curemaker of Avonlea

by flibbertygigget



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Severus Snape Lives, Time Travel, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: The Curemaker lived in a tiny room above his shop at the edge of Avonlea. No one knew who he was or where he came from, just that he had appeared almost like magic one night in May almost a decade ago. Anne thinks that the mystery is awfully romantic, the Story Club wonders if the rumors about his cures are true, and Marilla considers the entire affair unbearably silly until it very much isn’t.It remains unbearably unsilly for 50 years.
Relationships: Anne Shirley & Severus Snape, Marilla Cuthbert/Severus Snape, Rilla Blythe & Severus Snape
Comments: 17
Kudos: 82
Collections: Snape Bigbang 2019





	1. Anne

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Snape Bigbang 2019. The art is by [serosvit](https://serosvit.tumblr.com).

Art by [serosvit](https://serosvit.tumblr.com/).

_History repeats itself. First as tragedy, then as farce._

_\- Tony Kushner,_ _A Bright Room Called Day_

“—and Silas Henshaw down near the church. That man could sell you sackcloth and make you believe it's lace. Now, I’m not saying that he’s not a proper gentleman, but he’s a sly old merchant, that’s what.” 

Mrs. Rachel Lynde had invited herself to tea with Marilla, ostensibly so that she could wish Anne a happy thirteenth birthday. Of course, she had soon fallen into her favorite method of wishing her friends well – updating them on the goings-on of the denizens of Avonlea and the surrounding areas. In Anne Shirley she had been delighted to find a perfect tea-mate, who was interested enough to exclaim and question at the appropriate times yet uninformed enough to not have more interesting gossip of her own. 

“And then, of course, there’s the Curemaker.”

“You don’t need to be filling Anne’s head with _that_ foolishness,” Marilla said curtly. Anne, naturally, brought all her attention to bear on Mrs. Lynde.

“Who’s the Curemaker?” she asked.

“Well,” said Mrs. Lynde, settling back with her cup like a satisfied monarch, “no one knows much about him. He appeared in Avonlea about ten years back – and I mean appeared. No one recognized him from the ferry, and there’s plenty to recognize there.”

“What does he look like?” Anne said. Marilla looked at her disapprovingly. She could tell from the moonstruck look in the girl’s eyes that Anne was about to go off on one of her flights of fancy.

“Well, he’s an odd fish, that’s what. Nose like a vulture and hair like John the Baptist, all wild and long. It’s his neck that’s the oddest, though. You can’t see it, normally, since he keeps it covered up, but I’ve heard tell that he has scars, scars like some wild animal tried to rip out his throat.” Anne gave a satisfying little ‘oh’ at this information. “He lives above the old boarded up shop out past the schoolhouse. Almost no one’s seen him since he first came to the island, but the few that have are the reason he’s called the Curemaker.”

“And – and what’s that?” said Anne, leaning forward in her chair.

“They say he makes cures,” said Mrs. Lynde. She said this with the air of a grand revelation. When Anne didn’t reply with her usual rhapsodies, Mrs. Lynde continued, a little put out. “Not a doctor’s cures, although he can do that sure enough. No, these are more mysterious brews. Timmy Hitchens said that he wanted a bottle to help him on his way to fame, and he began playing with a vaudeville troupe not long afterwards.” Anne’s eyes went wide at this. “Hildegarde Cummings, poor girl, was nearly thirty and had no beau, and the Curemaker gave her a perfume that she called Second Glance.”

“Now, I think that’s quite enough,” Marilla said, who felt that the conversation had taken a decidedly dangerous turn, especially in front of an impressionable, barely-teenage girl. Mrs. Lynde just smiled and took another tart.

“But the queerest of all was Old Roberts’ son. You remember, Marilla, how little Hugh was dying of consumption about seven years back?” Marilla nodded stiffly. “Well, the doctors had done everything they could for the boy, and they said that the best thing to do would be to call in the pastor to administer Last Rites. That’s when Old Roberts got it into his head to go to the Curemaker.” Mrs. Lynde took a long, leisurely sip of her tea, allowing the tension to build. “That was the one and only time I ever saw the man. I had gone over to comfort Edith, of course. He was wearing a great big cloak thing that billowed around him, and he had all his cures in this old leather satchel. He told us to all leave the boy’s deathbed – Edith started crying something awful – and not to disturb him. I don’t know how he did it, but in the morning the boy was right as rain, not even a hint of the fever.” 

“Ridiculous!” scoffed Marilla. She had never heard this story before and was of the not unreasonable opinion that any unheard story from Mrs. Rachel Lynde was automatically suspect, especially one so fantastic and that had taken place seven years ago.

“I’d swear it in court, Marilla, and that’s the truth. There’s something strange about the man, something that can’t be explained by any measure I can take of it.”

“Rachel, I’m ashamed of you. You’re talking like a fool. Not to mention that’s there’s something a bit… well… a bit _pagan_ about it.”

“Oh, _he’s_ not Christian, that’s for certain. Nobody’s seen him in a church, not the Lutheran nor the Presbyterian nor the Methodist nor the Baptist, and you know that if the synagogue in Charlottetown got a new member Ruth Bozeman would be talking about it for weeks. Now, if you ask me, he _is_ a pagan, one of those voodoo men or witch doctors you get down in the States.”

“Now that’s simply ridiculous.” Marilla was starting to sound a bit flustered, which had not happened since she had, as a much younger woman, won the church cake-baking competition. “If he _is_ some sort of – of heathen spiritualist, why would he come to Avonlea?”

“Well, one can hardly say,” Mrs. Lynde said, enjoying herself immensely, “but I will say this. Whatever the Curemaker is, some pagan warlock or witch doctor, his cures work. No matter how strange or impossible it sounds, his cures work, that’s what.” If Anne had leaned any further forward, she would have fallen face-first onto the ground.

“Can you tell me his name, his real name?” she asked, vibrating with excitement.

“No, I cannot,” said Mrs. Lynde. “No one can. He hasn’t told anyone a name in the decade that he’s lived here.” Anne’s eyes, Marilla noticed with a kind of a nervous shudder, were shining all the brighter.

* * *

“Anne, what _is_ the matter with you?” Diana asked. Anne jumped a little. She hadn’t realized that Diana had finished reading her work to the Story Club, and now the rest of the girls were staring at her, waiting for her to give her critique.

“I’m terribly sorry, Diana,” she said. “But you ought to know that I have an excuse. When Mrs. Lynde had tea with Marilla and I last Saturday, she told me about a mysterious and romantic figure – right here in Avonlea!” Ruby Gillis leaned forward, no doubt at the thought of a new potential beau, and Jane Andrews was more than willing to abandon both her story and the sorry state of its spelling.

“Who is it?” Diana said, at the same time as Ruby said, “And what does he look like?”

“He’s the Curemaker, that’s who he is. He’s tall and raven-haired, and he wears a gentleman’s opera cape. No one knows who he is or where he came from, but Mrs. Lynde says that he lives above the boarded-up shop near the school. His cures are more potent than any doctor’s drugs-“ Jane Andrews laughed.

“That’s ridiculous!” she said. “My mother knows all about the man. He’s from England, and he sells colored water to gullible fools.”

“He’s English?” Ruby said excitedly. “Do you think that he’s ever met a knight?”

“Perhaps he is a knight,” Anne said dreamily. “A knight forced into exile from his lands. Years ago his lady love took ill, so ill that there wasn’t a doctor in England who could wake her from her sleep. He travelled to far-flung places, places like Arabia and the dales of France, learning the secrets of the plants and herbs until he knew how he could save her. He returned to his native land, only to find that his lady had perished just a few hours before. He smoothed back her halo of golden hair and kissed her alabaster brow, vowing that he would use the cures he had found to save others as he could not save her. Many a year passed, and his infamy grew, until a wicked archdeacon, mad with envy for the poor knight’s power, claimed that he bought his cures from the devil. The archdeacon sent wild dogs after the knight, and he was forced to flee England, but not before one of the dogs nearly tore out his throat, leaving a terrible scar. Tempest tossed, he was thrown upon the shores of Avonlea.”

“There aren’t any shores in Avonlea,” Diana said sensibly. “I would think that he would have walked.”

“It is a poetic shore,” Anne said, sounding a bit like Marilla at her most long-suffering. “How many times have I told you all that a story shouldn’t let realism get in the way of its poetry?”

“If he is a knight,” Ruby Gillis said, “I suppose we ought to go and pay him obeisance. When the common folk pay obeisance in the stories, more often than not they become embroiled in all kinds of romantic happenings.” Ruby Gillis’s idea of romance had far more lovemaking in it than Anne’s, and she found the idea of a knighthood most attractive in a beau. 

“He isn’t a knight,” Jane sniffed. “What would a knight be doing in Avonlea?”

“But if the things I’ve heard are true, he _is_ a genuine Curemaker,” Diana said thoughtfully. “My father said that my Uncle Randell swore by the Curemaker’s medicines. He had hay fever.”

“That’s just hay fever,” said Jane. “Everyone has a way of dealing with _that_.”

“I’m going to go to the Curemaker,” Anne said decidedly. All three of the other girls looked at her, incredulous expressions on their faces.

“Why would you want to do that?” Jane Andrews exclaimed.

“Because he’s a tall, dark, mysterious man,” Anne said. She said this as if it explained everything, and in her mind it most satisfactorily did.

“Are you certain it’s quite safe?” said Diana.

“Of course, it’s safe,” Anne said. “After all, if your Uncle Randell swears by him, who are we to sully the unknown name of such a figure? Do any of you want to come with me when I call on him?”

“I will,” Ruby Gillis said eagerly, head still full of knights and beaus. Diana nodded, and Jane Andrews, not wanting to be left out, indicated her assent as well.

“After all,” she said practically, “there ought to be one of us there with some sense, and it should be an awfully interesting adventure.”

* * *

Anne had planned their expedition carefully. First, she told Marilla that she and the Story Club were going on an adventure into the Haunted Wood, searching for inspiration. Marilla sniffed that it was all foolishness, but Anne could go if she made sure she did all her chores before school. Her cover secure, Anne informed her co-conspirators that that night (that afternoon, really, but conspirators always worked at night) was the night.

Brimful with excitement and curiosity, the four girls began their trek beyond the schoolhouse to the farthest edge of Avonlea. All of them were certain that, whatever happened, they would have an excellent adventure. It was only when they reached the crest of the last hill that they stopped. The building at the bottom of the hill had to be the Curemaker’s.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Ruby said nervously. “I mean, are you sure it’s _safe_ , Anne?”

“Of course,” Anne said, but even she didn’t sound certain. When Mrs. Lynde had described a boarded-up shop with a set of rooms above, she had pictured something like the Farm Supply in town. The Curemaker’s shop was nothing like that. It was so rundown that Anne would have assumed it abandoned, the boards so weathered that there wasn’t a hint of paint left on them. Like most other houses, it had a garden, but it was unlike any other garden that Anne had ever seen. The plants were more like weeds, scraggly and sharp-looking, more suited for a moor than the fertile farmland of Prince Edward Island, and the fence that surrounded them was made of twisted chicken wire.

“It doesn’t look like a good place,” Jane Andrews said. “Come on, girls, let’s go. I don’t want to be here any longer.”

“But we have to go in,” Anne said. “We’ve set ourselves on this quest, and we’ve come too far to turn back now.”

“It’s only been a mile,” Jane argued. “Honestly, Anne, it’s _creepy_. It looks like something out of Poe.” Anne started marching down the hill. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Anne said, not bothering to look back.

“Oh – Wait, Anne! I’m coming!” Diana ran to Anne’s side, stumbling slightly over the steep, uneven terrain.

“Me too,” Ruby said, rallying slightly at Diana’s enthusiasm. “Come on, Jane.”

“It isn’t safe,” Jane insisted, standing forlornly at the top of the hill.

“Oh, we’ll be perfectly fine,” Ruby said. “Besides, even if he is as dangerous as you say, he won’t be able to get us all at once, and as the plainest you’ll have the advantage.”

“Well…” Jane wavered for a moment. Ruby pulled on her hand encouragingly, and that was what sealed her fate. Jane overbalanced and, shrieking loudly, began tumbling down the steep hill. Anne, Diana, and Ruby ran after her, hampered slightly by the craggy rocks that seemed to seek to trip them. When they finally reached the bottom of the hill, panting slightly, Jane was still on the ground, tears in her eyes.

“Jane! Jane! Have I killed you?” Ruby said. Jane glared at her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You haven’t killed me.” She looked down at her ankle, and her face went very pale. “But I do think that you managed to break my ankle.” The three girls gathered around Jane’s left ankle. It certainly looked broken, the pieces jutting beneath her skin like the crags of fleshy mountains.

“We need to get her a doctor immediately,” Diana said. “Can we carry her?” Anne glanced at the hill dubiously. Making their way down had been difficult enough. Going up with Jane stretched between them would be next to impossible.

“We could try,” Anne said. “But what if we dropped her? We could make it even worse.”

“I find it hard to imagine anything making this worse,” Jane said, voice sharp with pain. Anne bit her lip.

“Perhaps if one of us went and brought him here…” Ruby Gillis huffed impatiently.

“You’re all forgetting the reason why we came here,” she said. Anne, Diana, and Jane looked at her, confused. “We could have the Curemaker look at her!”

“What? No! I refuse to do it!” Jane said. Diana, however, seemed to be considering the suggestion seriously.

“He is a great deal closer,” she said. “Even if it turns out he can’t help you, we could at least get you somewhere more comfortable while you wait for the doctor.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I’m perfectly fine-“ Jane tried to get to her feet, but the moment she jostled her ankle she grew very pale and sunk to the ground half-conscious. “Perhaps… perhaps you should go to him…” she said faintly. “But please, don’t take me there, not until you know it’s safe.”

“We won’t,” Ruby Gillis promised tearfully. “Oh, Jane, whatever are we going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Anne said. “You and Diana are going to stay here with Jane. I’ll go off and ask the Curemaker for help. This is all my fault, after all.”

“Are you sure you’ll be quite alright, Anne?” Diana asked.

“It is my duty now, Diana. I am the captain that must go down with his ship, no matter what the cost,” Anne intoned solemnly. “Besides, Ruby can’t be left to tend Jane by herself. She’s half hysterical.”

Anne set off quickly, the luster of the adventure quite gone now. She didn’t know much about broken ankles, but she had heard of several men from Mr. Thomas’s profession whose legs had been crushed by logs and had their bones broken. He had always said that if Anne didn’t mind him he would do the same to her, and then she would never walk the same again.

The doctors seemed more skilled, not to mention more obliging, in Avonlea than back in New Brunswick, but Anne would not take any chances. There was no question in her mind that the same Curemaker who could save little Hugh Roberts from death could heal a broken ankle as simple as anything. Anne would pay any price for Jane to be healed, or at least any price up to twenty cents, which was what she had saved from her share of the egg money.

Anne raced up to the forbidding front door, knocking on it wildly. She paused for a moment, waiting breathlessly, but there was no sound from within. She knocked again, and again she paused. There was no answer. Anne shivered. The entire building seemed to be abandoned, and Anne had no idea what she would do if it proved to be so. Trying to hold back her tears, she turned back toward the hill where her friends were waiting.

 _Crack!_ Anne jumped. It was a noise like a gunshot, sharp and clear as anything, and it came from inside the building. Anne wavered, not wanting to face a deadly weapon but knowing that it was her duty to try to find the Curemaker again now that she knew there was someone there. She knocked on the door a final time, each knock making her heart pound faster in her chest. There was the sound of several locks being unbolted, and then the door swung open.

“What the devil do you want, girl?” said a deep, gruff voice. Anne stared up at the man in the doorway. _So this is the Curemaker_ , she thought. He was taller than she had imagined him, taller and thinner than Matthew even. Other than that, he was exactly as Mrs. Lynde had described. Long, sheet-like black hair just beginning to be touched with gray, a hooked nose, tunnel-like eyes. He was dressed all in black, like a vicar, and Anne couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ragged, bone-white scar that tore across half his neck.

“I – I-“ The man saw where she was looking and irritably drew up the collar of his jacket to conceal the remains of the wound.

“Well?” he said.

“We were at the top of the hill because we wanted to meet you, but Jane fell and now she’s broken her ankle and would you please, please help us?” Anne blurted out. The Curemaker blinked, and then he heaved a sigh.

“Fine,” he said before closing the door in her face. Anne jumped, but before she could decide what to do the door opened again. The Curemaker had put on a long, black cloak that was just as Mrs. Lynde had described, and he was carrying a case made of aged leather. “Where is your injured friend?”

“I’ll lead you to her,” Anne said breathlessly. “Thank you so very much for helping us.” The Curemaker gave her an unfathomable look, and Anne immediately began to go back to where she had left Diana, Ruby, and Jane.

Little had changed in her absence, except that Ruby was a bit more reasonable and Jane a bit more pale. The Curemaker knelt smoothly beside Jane, glancing at her for permission before rolling down her stocking and examining her ankle with hands that seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

“Will she be alright?” Diana said, wringing her hands.

“It is a complex break,” the Curemaker said.

“Great,” Jane said, managing to glare at Ruby despite her obvious nausea.

“It would be better if I brought her back to my house,” he said. 

“Absolutely not!” Jane said. “I don’t even know you. Going into your home, _alone_ …” She tried to get up and fell back to the ground with a yelp.

“Don’t put more pressure on it, you stupid girl,” the Curemaker snapped. He closed his eyes and took a bracing breath. “I would be able to work more effectively there.” Jane looked over at Anne, eyes wide with alarm. Anne looked around, but Ruby and Diana both seemed to be waiting to follow her lead.

“Would we be able to go with her?” she asked him. The Curemaker looked at her sourly.

“One of you, if you must,” he said. “And no gossiping about it with your school friends. I won’t have rumors of my methods bandied about.” That didn’t do much to reassure Anne, but nonetheless she nodded. Every insult and indignity would be worth it, she was sure, if only Jane would be cured.

The Curemaker passed a hand over her injured friend in something that almost seemed a benediction. Then he scooped Jane into his arms, bridal-style, without even a grunt of effort. For a moment Anne thought that Ruby and Diana were going to follow them, but a glare from the Curemaker sent them scrambling halfway up the hill. Anne girded her loins - a term from her novels that she hadn’t yet quite figured out the meaning of, but that she thought sounded terribly impressive - and followed him.

“Open that door…” He trailed off and seemed to be waiting for something.

“Oh!” said Anne, realizing what he wanted. “Anne. Anne Shirley.” She held out her hand, but a look from Jane reminded her that the Curemaker was hardly in the position to shake it. She gave an awkward little curtsy instead. “Anne spelled with an ‘e’.” The Curemaker rolled his eyes.

“Fine,” he said. “Now would you be so kind as to open that door, Miss Shirley?”

“Oh, right,” Anne said. She opened the door and followed the Curemaker inside, looking around curiously. At first glance the whole place looked disappointingly like what she would expect an abandoned store to look like, all empty shelving with a large counter where once customers would have paid. But then the Curemaker led her behind the counter and up a flight of stairs, and that was when Anne’s world changed completely.

The first indication was the sound of music. Truthfully, it took Anne a few moments to even register that it _was_ music at all, since it sounded nothing like anything she’d ever heard before. There was something that might have been a finger-picked guitar, several types of aggressively-played drums, and what could only be described as a number of stringed instruments playing in complete synchrony. Beyond that, there was something else, something completely different, almost artificial sounding. It _sounded_ in the same way that the electric lighting in the White Sands Hotel _looked_ . All of it was a bit like that, really - a bit too fast, a bit too in synch, a bit too _much._ And there was no way in creation that the Curemaker could have half an orchestra in his apartment.

That was when the singing began - _Don’t you wonder sometimes, ‘bout sound and vision._ By this point the Curemaker had gotten all the way up the stairs and set Jane down on his sofa. He fiddled with a large, oblong box placed on his side table and the music abruptly stopped.

“What on earth was that?” Jane said. The Curemaker pursed his lips.

“My apologies for… that,” he said. “Now, Miss Shirley, Miss…”

“Andrews,” Jane said promptly. The Curemaker gave her a curt nod.

“Miss Andrews. Can I have both your assurance that nothing you see here will leave these four walls?” Anne and Jane glanced at one another. Anne had no idea what Jane was thinking, but _she_ was already trying to find an appropriately supernatural and poetical way to describe the strangeness of the music that they had heard a snippet of to Diana. 

“Will you help Jane?” she said. 

“It would be a great deal less complicated for me to do so,” the Curemaker said, “if you would give me your word.”

“Alright then,” Anne said, holding out her hand to shake on it. The Curemaker raised an eyebrow, but he took her hand. He glanced over at Jane, who nodded.

“Me too,” she said. The Curemaker twisted his right wrist as though he was turning a door handle, and a stick appeared in his hand. Really, to call it a stick felt like an understatement. It was nearly a foot long and made of dark, polished poplar wood. Anne’s mouth fell open in amazement. If the strange music hadn’t been enough to convince her that Mrs. Lynd’s suspicions of voodoo were correct, _this_ certainly would have sealed the deal.

“What are you doing with that?” Jane squeaked. She scrambled back into the sofa, turning even more pale when she accidentally jostled her ankle yet again.

“Miss Andrews, calm yourself,” the Curemaker said with such an air of authority that Jane froze on the spot. With a flick of his wrist and a quick incantation, the bulging pieces of bone snapped back into place in her ankle. Another flick, and Jane collapsed in relief.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she muttered. “I don’t know how, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“How did you _do_ that?” Anne said. The Curemaker glanced over at her, a deep frown carving its way over his face.

“That,” he said, “is none of your business.” His wand (and there was no doubt in Anne’s mind now that it was a magic wand) turned to her.

“Are you going to use magic on me?" Anne asked, feeling strangely unafraid in spite of what might be called her better instincts. The Curemaker heaved a sigh.

"It would make my life immeasurably less complicated if I did," he said. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he slowly lowered his wand. "I think, however, that I have spent too much of my time performing distasteful tasks for the sake of the wizarding world and getting bugger all in return. If you do somehow manage to keep this a secret, then you will be safe from me."

* * *

“Marilla, Matthew,” Anne said one evening, “can I invite the Curemaker over for dinner?”

“Not this foolishness again,” sniffed Marilla. 

“He’s really a very dashing figure, and he did fix Jane’s broken ankle,” Anne said. “It would only be right to ask him to dinner to thank him for helping us in our time of need.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marilla said. “If the Andrews’ wish to thank him by having him over, that’s all well and good, but it would be out of the question to invite him to Green Gables. Besides, do you even know his name?” Anne had to admit that she didn’t. “It simply wouldn’t be proper.”

“Well now, I dunno,” Matthew said slowly. Anne turned her shining eyes to her savior, and that galvanized Matthew enough to continue. “He seems to have helped Anne and her friends out of a bit of a scrape, and he seems like a good sort. I reckon it would be alright.”

“Matthew Cuthbert, have you lost your senses?” Marilla said. Matthew ducked his head and stared uncomfortably at his beans, but she felt she had every right to be shocked. The Matthew she had known all her life would never have voluntarily acted host to anyone, never mind a complete stranger. 

“Oh, Marilla, please do. I think you’d like him if you bothered to get to know him. Besides, do you want to meet the man who helped your Anne in her hour of greatest need?” 

Marilla had to concede that she did want that, though not for the reason Anne had said. She may have been an old maid who had barely concerned herself with men even in her youth, but she wasn’t a fool and she wasn’t naive. This supposed Curemaker was an outsider, a racketeer, and a man - and all of those were, in Marilla’s opinion, very good reasons to keep him far away from Anne. At the same time, in some ways it could hardly be helped. The Curemaker had obviously caught Anne’s always too-active imagination, and though Marilla _thought_ that Anne would obey her if she forbade the girl to contact him… well, it was better to be safe than sorry, and having some knowledge of this Curemaker would go a long way in assuaging her half-formed fears.

It was with all this in mind that she reluctantly allowed Anne to invite the Curemaker to Green Gables. Not for dinner - she had to put her foot down somewhere - but an invitation to tea on a Thursday afternoon would be proper enough for even Mrs. Lynde, and it would give Marilla an opportunity to size up this stranger. When Marilla told her, Anne flew into a flurry of excitement over the preparations. Anne seemed determined that, if Marilla and Matthew weren’t going to go into the sort of effort she felt worthy of her friend’s savior and a possible knight, _she_ , at least, would make it a tea to remember. With that in mind, she got to work on making a spread that, though it hardly rivalled the sort of tea Green Gables got up when the minister was invited, seemed to her at least somewhat respectable.

“After all,” Anne said to Diana, who had quickly become her sole confidant concerning the Curemaker, “from what I saw of his apartment, it seemed very well furnished, though strange. It would be improper to invite him to tea and not show our full hospitality.”

“Don’t you think you should be a bit more, well, cautious?” Diana said. “If he has a box that holds a full concert, then who knows what he could do if he’s displeased. I know you think he’s some kind of gallant, romantic figure, but he could just as easily be a wicked sorcerer.”

“All the more reason to treat him properly,” Anne said. “Besides, he might be mysterious, but I don’t think he’s wicked. He helped Jane, after all, and did so without any indication that he was some kind of trickster.”

At last the long-anticipated day arrived. Anne had managed to make a jelly, jam tarts, and a towering layer cake in time for the occasion, and Marilla reluctantly agreed to provide her baking soda biscuits. Matthew had been successfully coaxed out of hiding, though Anne thought it doubtful that he would get up the courage for much conversation, even though the Curemaker _was_ a man. Still, when the time arrived Anne was sure that she had done all in her power to make the afternoon a success. Therefore, when a knock sounded on the door at the precise hour the Curemaker had been asked for, Anne felt no embarrassment in jumping up from her seat near the hearth and opening the door for him, ignoring Marilla’s scandalized admonishment.

“Oh, you _came_!” Anne exclaimed in delight. “I was so worried that you wouldn’t. Don’t worry, Marilla, I knew it was him right away. We’re kindred spirits, you know. Can I take your coat?”

“Anne Shirley-” Marilla began.

“I can manage,” the Curemaker said dryly, shrugging off his cloak and hanging it on a peg by the door. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cuthbert.” 

“And you as well, Mr…”

“Snape. Severus Snape.” Marilla gave a curt nod. Though she kept a veneer of civility, Anne couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t invited the Curemaker - or Mr. Snape, as she must now call him - to use her first name in the same way she had for everyone from the minister and his wife to Anne herself. 

At first the tea was a study in stubborn Victorian civility and Protestant suspicion of anything remotely heathanish. When Marilla had gone to the kitchen to fetch more hot water Anne had distinctly heard her muttering “Severus, Severus, what kind of a name is Severus?” Still, between Anne’s perpetual chattiness, Matthew’s determined attempt to prove to Marilla that there was nothing to worry about when it came to Mr. Snape, and Marilla’s rather chilly version of hospitality, they seemed to be getting on alright. That was, of course, until the Curemaker decided to throw all those carefully studied rules out the window.

“Well then, Miss Cuthbert,” he said, “I suppose you’ll be interrogating me now.”

“Excuse me?” Marilla said.

“That is why you’ve invited me here, is it not?” Anne frantically tried to signal to him that this was a very bad idea, but Mr. Snape took no notice. “I don’t blame you. Even if you knew me, my actions would not be above suspicion, and I am a stranger to Avonlea.”

“I suppose we might as well start there,” Marilla said, having apparently decided to take the opportunity that this astounding break with decorum presented her. “You’ve lived here for a decade. Why have you chosen to keep to yourself, so that no one can possibly get a measure of your true character?”

“Even if I became the most social man in Avonlea, I doubt you could get that, any of you,” he said.

“Mrs. Lynde would give it a go,” Anne muttered. Marilla shot her an admonishing look, but Anne thought she could see a hint of amusement in the corners of Mr. Snape’s mouth.

“Besides,” he said smoothly, as though Anne hadn’t said a word, “I prefer it.”

“Oh, anyone could understand a simple preference for solitude, my brother here can attest to that,” said Marilla, ignoring Matthew’s disgruntled ‘well now.’ “But we ought to have seen you in one of the general stores, or in church, or at town meetings. Instead, it is as though you are a ghost, appearing only when called upon for your devilish cures.”

“I think devilish is a bit of an overstatement,” Mr. Snape said. 

“That doesn’t explain why you haven’t been seen anywhere else. You’ve set yourself apart, kept yourself a complete stranger from anyone, and then act as if we ought to trust you.”

“Have I given any indication,” Mr. Snape said, “that I expect for you to trust me?” Marilla didn’t seem to have an answer to that.

“How did you get that awful scar?” she said instead.

“Snake attack,” Mr. Snape deadpanned.

“You won’t prove yourself trustworthy with blatant falsehoods.”

“On the contrary, making my falsehoods blatant should assure you that I would never tell a more insidious lie. Besides,” he said, “it was not a lie.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You must admit, Miss Cuthbert, that there are snakes large enough to make these wounds, and that I have no reason to make up something so seemingly fantastical.”

“And your cures?” Mr. Snape raised an eyebrow and looked at Anne.

“Well, Miss Shirley, it seems I was right in trusting you,” he said. Anne swallowed and thought guiltily of how she had described everything about the Curemaker in minute detail to Diana. 

“Trusting her with what? What did you do to the Andrews girl?” Marilla looked as though she was one wrong word away from throwing Mr. Snape out the door and ordering Matthew to round up a posse. The Curemaker sighed.

“Well, I have already revealed my secrets to two teenage girls,” he said, almost to himself. “I suppose two more people wouldn’t do a great deal of harm.”

“Your secrets?” Marilla said, low and dangerous. Mr. Snape twisted his right wrist, and Anne felt a thrill go through her as the wand revealed itself once more. Matthew and Marilla could only stare.

“Well now,” Matthew said before lapsing into silence, apparently at a loss for any other words.

“That can’t have been in your sleeve,” Marilla said. “It’s too long. It can’t have been-” Mr. Snape flicked his wrist, and his teacup turned into a bright yellow duck made of rubber. Anne’s mouth dropped open, and she gave a gasp of delight. Mending broken bones was one thing, but in spite of the box that held the whole concert in it she had never expected magic to be able to be used for such a frivolous, amazing thing.

“Any questions?” Mr. Snape said to their stunned silence. Marilla crossed her arms.

“Loads,” she said, but Anne could see the harsh lines around the corners of her mouth softening slightly. It seemed that even Marilla couldn’t deny that that magic, real magic, was a surprisingly decent reason to have a life shrouded in secrecy.

“I can’t say I trust him, Anne,” Marilla told her after the Curemaker had left far later in the evening than was proper, “but I can’t deny that his… magic,” she forced the word out like it was a blasphemy, “is real, and if it’s half of what he says it’s a useful sort of thing to have around. Still, I’d rather you didn’t meet with him alone. Who knows what those voodoo types get up to.”

“He only told us because he helped Jane,” Anne argued. Marilla sighed but conceded the point.

“Still, I do understand why you like him,” she said. “He’s as flighty and ill-mannered as you at your worst, though he manages to hide it better.” Anne had to laugh at that.

* * *

“Matthew? Matthew - What is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?” Marilla’s voice grew more alarmed with each jerky word. Anne ran to her, dropping the armful of white narcissus she was carrying on the doorstep, just in time to see Matthew sink to the ground, his face grey and drawn.

“Marilla?” she said, her voice small.

“He’s fainted,” gasped Marilla. “Anne, run for Martin; he’s at the barn. No-” She was feeling for Matthew’s pulse at his neck. She let out a low curse that Anne had never imagined coming from Marilla. “No, get that Curetaker - quick, quick!” 

Bile rose in Anne’s throat, her eyes prickling hot with tears, but she dashed out of Green Gables and down the lane. It seemed to take ages and ages to get to the ridge that overlooked Mr. Snape’s shop, but at last she could see it less than a hundred yards away. She picked her way down the steep hill, torn between the desperate need to get him to Matthew as quickly as possible and the fear the falling would make everything worse. At last she reached the shop, pounding on the front door.

“Please!” she yelled when no one responded from inside. “Please, it’s Matthew! He’s sick! Please, Mr. Snape!” Her fists slowed, and she rested her forehead against the door. There was no response, no hint of life. Was the Curemaker even home?

Suddenly, there was a crack like a gunshot, the same sort of crack she had heard the last time she’d knocked desperately on the Curemaker’s door. Anne resumed pounding on the door with renewed fervor, hoping that the noise meant what she suspected it did.

“Please!” she yelled, and then the door opened.

“What is it?” Mr. Snape said, taking in her disheveled appearance and pallid face with an unnerved sort of surprise.

“Matthew - He’s fainted - Marilla said to get you - _Please_.”

“You stupid girl, of course I’ll help you,” he said. “Let me get my bag.”

“She said to hurry. I don’t know - she was trying to find a pulse-” Mr. Snape swore loudly and grabbed Anne’s elbow. Anne was instantly engulfed in darkness, a horrible pressing darkness that made her feel as though she was being squeezed by a giant snake. Then the darkness was gone, and Anne collapsed on the doorstep of Green Gables, gasping for breath.

She looked up. Mr. Snape had crossed the room to where Matthew had fallen in a few long strides and was now kneeling by his side, passing his wand up and down Matthew’s body and muttering furiously in some language that wasn’t English. Marilla was clutching Matthew’s arm and letting out choked little sobs that were worse than if she had let go in wild abandon. Finally Mr. Snape rested back on his heels, his face ashen grey and almost as still as Matthew’s.

“Is he alright?” Anne said, stumbling as she got to her feet. “Please - _Please_ tell me he’s alright.” Mr. Snape raised a shaking hand, pressing two fingers to Matthew’s eyelids and closing them. That was all the answer that Anne needed. She pressed her hand to her mouth as Marilla gave a torn, anguished scream.

“I’m sorry,” the Curemaker said. “I thought I might - It doesn’t matter what I thought. I’m so sorry.”


	2. Marilla

_ The world out there is complicated, and there are beasts in the night, and delight, and pain, and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes, is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze and not to be alone. _

_ \- Neil Gaiman, “All I Know About Love” _

Severus Snape stayed by Marilla Cuthbert’s side all through those next few horrible days.

He barely spoke, and never unless spoken to first. He didn’t try to make the ache of losing her brother lessen with flimsy words. And yet he was always there, standing a step behind her to her left, an imposing sentry against the mourners and play-actors that flooded Green Gables.

“Why did Matthew have to die?” she asked one evening as he brought her tea. The part of her that still functioned was screaming how inappropriate it was for an unmarried man and an unmarried woman to occupy the same space, at night, without a chaperone, but she couldn’t say that she wasn’t grateful for his seeming lack of care for propriety. Her grief had stripped almost every comfort away, and she had put too much of herself on Anne already. She couldn’t bear to have this taken as well.

“Everyone dies,” Mr. Snape said.

“No, I mean, why couldn’t you save him? You’ve saved so many others; why couldn’t you just save him?”

“No magic can raise the dead,” Mr. Snape said, more gentle than she had ever heard him before. He sat, sighed, and began pouring their tea. Marilla stared into her cup. She could feel the tears threatening again, and just when she thought she had no more tears to shed. 

“Why?” she said.

“Miss Cuthbert-”

“Call me Marilla, please. I can’t  _ stand  _ being Miss Cuthbert now.”

“Marilla,” he said, and then he stopped. Paused. Stirred his tea. “I once knew a man, a wizard like myself, who sought to defy death,” he began awkwardly. “He found ways to prolong his life, Dark ways, ways that caused him to kill for it. He was a monster by the end, barely human, and still he died. Mr. Cuthbert - Matthew lived a good life. It may not have been as long as you might have wished, but it was a good life.” 

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Marilla said, and now the tears spilled over. She wiped at them fiercely. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t cry, I just - I can’t believe he’s gone. I don’t ever remember a time when he wasn’t there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mr. Snape snapped. Marilla flinched, looking up at him with half-dried eyes. He looked furious, honestly furious, and she had no idea what had set him off. “Cry. He deserves it.  _ You _ deserve it. There’s nothing worse than a grief you aren’t allowed to feel.”

“Who do you think you are? Some sort of expert on grief?”

“Please. I couldn’t - And for reasons, good reasons. I don’t regret what I did, not really. But cutting yourself off from your own heart, forcing yourself to feel less than what you are - it makes everything hurt more in the long run. Don’t do that to yourself for no damn good reason.” Marilla pursed her lips reflexively at the swear, but his point was well taken.

“Who didn’t you grieve?” she asked, morbidly curious. “Who don’t you grieve?”

“Too many,” he said curtly, but then he softened a little, apparently seeing in her eyes just how inadequate an answer that was for her grief. “Most because it would have been unwise to feel too deeply at the time. It was for the better, and I don’t regret it even though it hurts. They were mourned properly by others, anyways. Once, though,” he hesitated, and Marilla got the distinct feeling that she was hearing more than he had told anyone else in a very long time, “I mourned, but it wasn’t - She deserved better than what I gave her.”

“Who? Your…” Marilla made a gesture in the air that seemed to encompass all of human feeling.

“I wanted her to be. She chose another, and then-” He looked down at his tea, swallowing thickly. “I killed her, and then I failed to save her.”

“Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

“No. I - The truth is, Marilla, you were right to be wary of me. I’m a good actor, a good liar, but not in truth a very good person. I’ve tried to make up for all the things I’ve done but, well, you can’t shake hands with the devil and then say you were simply mistaken. There’s a reason I ended up on Prince Edward Island, that I ended up here  _ now _ .” 

For a long time, Marilla could only stare at him. She tried and failed to wrap her head around everything he’d said, everything he’d implied. He’d caused a death, yet had tried to prevent it. He’d “shaken hands with the devil,” a strange phrase that made Marilla’s stomach clench in discomfort. At the same time, he claimed to have no regrets, or at least very few. A good actor, a good liar…

“You’ve repented for… what you’ve done wrong?” He gave her a hesitant nod, as though he wasn’t sure it was the right answer. “You’ve done what you can to make it right?”

“There’s no making some things right.”

“No,” she acknowledged. “But you did try to save her, just as you tried to save Matthew. I may not know the full scope of your sin, only God can know that, but I believe that there is such a thing as redemption in His eyes - and if you continue as you have been you will certainly have that.”

“There are some things that are beyond forgiveness, Marilla.”

“To human beings, maybe. Not to Him.” She reached across the table and hesitantly took his hand. “And not to me.”

“I think,” he said softly, “that you had better start calling me Severus.”

* * *

It took longer than it should have for Marilla to realize that she was beginning to love him.

After the funeral, she hadn’t known what to do. The death of her brother had torn a hole in the fabric of life at Green Gables. Without him, half the necessary work of the farm stayed undone, and they couldn’t afford a second worker to take his place. At first, Marilla was almost certain that she would be forced to sell Green Gables. At least Anne was planning to go to university at Redmond and had that scholarship. The money from selling Green Gables should be able to cover her room at a boarding house and whatever else she might need, and afterwards Anne would be able to support herself even if she never married.

Marilla tried to ignore the other hole her brother had left, the one inside her heart.

It was painful, going on, trying to do her chores and keep the farm presentable when all she wanted to do was go back to the way things had been before Matthew’s death, before everything had changed. Therefore, Marilla felt it reasonable that she didn’t notice, at first, just how often Severus Snape just so happened to drop by Green Gables.

It started with little things. A pail of milk that appeared in the kitchen on those days she couldn’t bring herself to leave her bed. A garden that seemed to water and weed itself. But it wasn’t until their hired man, Martin, came to her to ask if she still wanted him, on account of having hired someone else, that Marilla made up her mind to do something about it.

“It’s too much,” she told him. Severus paused over the eggs that he had been frying for her. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but it’s too much, whatever it is.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.

“Severus, I know you’re the one who’s been running the farm, and I’m grateful for that, I really am. But it has to stop.”

“Why?”

“We can’t pay you, not properly.”

“I’m not doing this for your money. I have plenty of that.”

“From selling your cures?”

“Among other things.”

“Then why are you doing all this? It’s…” She trailed off as the immensity of it hit her. Severus just rolled his eyes like an unruly child.

“I’m a wizard, Marilla,” he said.

* * *

The longer Marilla knew him, the more she longed to understand him. Not his character - she understood that well enough. She knew that he was sharp-tongued and clever and, at his core, a good, kind sort of man. But some of the stories he told, the hints he dropped, painted a far murkier picture of his past.

She knew that revealing his past wouldn’t cause her to hate him. He had been far too kind to her for that. That might have been why she was more curious than ever - there was nothing like discovering just what multitude of sins love would cover.

“Who was the woman you loved once?” she asked him one morning when she went out to fetch the eggs and found him already there.

“Her name was Lily,” he said after a long pause. Marilla raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking him for more. “She was my first and best friend.”

“Why couldn’t you mourn them?” she asked him one afternoon when the bread was baking.

“It would have been unwise at the time,” he said. 

“Why?”

“I was… committed to a task. Revealing myself would have put everything we’d worked towards in jeopardy.”

“You once told me that you killed this Lily, and afterwards failed to save her,” she said one evening when the flickering fire made needlework impossible with her failing eyes. “How is that possible?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It has to do with your magic? I’ll listen if you explain.”

“It has nothing to do with that. Well,” he amended, “very little.” He lapsed into silence, and Marilla waited. The silence was strange now. She was so used to Anne’s constant chatter, and her heart ached when she remembered that the girl would be away at Redmond until the summer. “Do you believe in prophecies?”

“I take it that they’re real.”

“Real, and rare. I overheard a seer, but I didn’t believe it to be genuine. At the time I was-” He paused, and his head dropped down into his hands. “Don’t think that the fact that I thought the prophecy a fake absolves me of any responsibility. I knew who I worked for, I knew that he would take this prophecy and use it for evil. I walked in with my eyes open, and in the end I lost the only person I had ever truly called a friend.” He sighed. “There was a prophecy. It applied to her and to her child. I tried to undo what I had done, but all my efforts were in vain. He murdered her.”

“You tried to save her,” Marilla said, reaching out and clasping his wrist. Severus shook his head.

“I should have never followed  _ him _ in the first place. He was - There are no words yet for what he was. He wished to exterminate all those who were unlike his ideal, and that included Lily.”

“And you supported him?”

“Supported him. Worked for him. Spied and made my potions for him - and not all potions are cures. There are no excuses, no explanations.” Marilla stared at him. She could only grasp half of what he alluded to, and still one word seemed to nag at her mind.

“You said ‘yet,’” she said.

“What?” he said.

“You said that there are no words for what this - this person was  _ yet _ . What do you mean ‘yet’?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“It’s impossible,” Marilla said softly, “but you’ve shown me many impossible things.” She searched for words that encompassed the impossible thing she was thinking. “Are you - Is it possible for wizards to - to somehow go backwards through time?”

“It takes a device called a Time-Turner or an extraordinary amount of skill and luck,” he said, “but it helps if you don’t much care when you land. Actually, I had hoped to go back farther.”

“When are you from?” she asked, balking a little at how foolish the question sounded. “ _ Who _ are you?”

“My name is Severus Snape,” he said. “I was born in Cokeworth, Manchester, on January 9th, 1960. I travelled back in time in May 1998 - and as far as the world in that time is concerned, I am dead.”

“One hundred years,” she said. He shrugged.

“And change. I arrived on this island in 1868, and that was after spending a few years… meddling. In wizard affairs, you understand.”

“Why go back?” she said. “I mean the world - it must be completely different. Electricity and - and steam engines.”

“Wizards are always behind the times. It was less of an adjustment than you’d think. As for why I decided to go back…” He stared into the fire, and Marilla could see the deep shame carving lines into his face. “My past was catching up with me, and I am an abominably selfish man.”

* * *

It said quite a bit about how often Severus stayed at Green Gables, Marilla reflected, when Rachel Lynde was not only unsurprised but not in the least scandalized by the fact that he was sitting at the breakfast table. Seven in the morning was a rather horrific time to come visiting, but Rachel was ever a law unto herself. The rest of Avonlea just had to take it.

“I heard a rumor,” Rachel Lynde announced as soon as greetings had been exchanged, “that another mysterious stranger has come to Prince Edward Island.”

“I am neither mysterious nor a stranger,” Severus said, not looking up from his paper, “but do go on.”

“He’s staying at the hotel in White Sands,” Rachel Lynde said, sitting down at the table and helping herself to a scone. “He just appeared one day. Nobody recognized him from the ferry - much like your Curemaker here, Marilla - and they would have. He apparently wears the most appalling purple velvet suits.” Marilla’s eyes widened as she saw Severus’s shoulders tense. “I think he’s one of your lot, Curemaker, that’s what. One of them foreign voodoo men.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marilla sniffed. “Severus isn’t a voodoo man, he’s a wizard, and besides that he’s British.”

“Did you happen to catch anything else about his appearance?” Severus said suddenly.

“Well, let me see. Most people were a bit caught on the suit, you understand. Absolutely vile. But I did hear... Ah, yes, Old Mrs. Walsh - you remember, Marilla, Seamus’s widow, the one who turned Catholic - she told me that her cousin from White Sands told her that his hair and beard are redder than Anne’s! I set her right, of course, because Anne’s hair really did grow back a rather lovely shade after all, but-”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lynde,” Severus said quickly, “but I think you ought to go now. Thank you for your visit. Goodbye.” Rachel sniffed and moaned, but she eventually did leave, though not without shooting Marilla a look that promised her return for the inevitable gossip. Marilla closed the door behind her friend, and then she turned back to Severus with more curiosity than annoyance.

"Who is he?" she demanded. For a moment he looked as though he would say something foolish. "I know you have knowledge of this man; don't try to deny it."

"I knew him once," Severus said as though admitting a horrible fault. "But not yet."

"He's from your future?" Severus nodded, looking troubled. "Who  _ will _ he be, then?"

"Powerful," Severus said, "both magically and otherwise. But for now…" He trailed off.

"What is his name?"

"Albus Dumbledore. He's-" He paused, gathering his words. "I think I ought to meet with him, Marilla. He's young, and he's grieving, and he's been very, very stupid."

"Like you were?" said Marilla, working off of the vaguest ghost of a hunch. 

"Oh, not nearly as bad," Severus said. "Still, I think - Well, he's alone. I know what it's like to be alone - though we all are, in the end."

"You're wrong," Marilla said. He looked up at her, and Marilla had never felt so certain. "Even when it seems everyone has gone from us, the Almighty is there. And… And He sends people, people to help us through our pain, people who reach out their hands through our darkness and show us that the light always remains. Even when we can't see it, it remains."

"I hope you're right, Marilla." Marilla reached over the table and squeezed his hand.

"We can drive to White Sands tomorrow," she said. "Green Gables can manage itself for a few days."

* * *

Marilla had, of course, told a bit of a lie. Green Gables  _ could _ manage itself, but that would take hiring at least one man to do the daily chores. Thankfully, Marilla had access to a man who could do all that with a wave of his wand and make the magic last several days. To White Sands they would go, no matter how strangely uncertain Severus seemed.

She had only seen him this unsettled once before: when he had relayed to her the darkest parts of his history. She prayed that what lay ahead for this stranger wasn't half so terrible.

"How many I help you, sir?" said the young woman at the reception desk of the White Sands Hotel.

"An acquaintance of mine is staying here," Severus said. "His name is Albus Dumbledore. Do you happen to have his room number?" She looked down at the register, biting her bottom lip in concentration.

"No, sir. No Albus Dumbledore here, sir." 

"Very well. I must have been-" A man in his twenties with bright red hair and the wispy beginnings of a beard came down the stairs. He stopped short when he saw Marilla staring at him, eyes widening as he took in the scene. "Mistaken. I must have been mistaken," Severus said, recovering with the quickness and ease of someone who often found himself facing an appalled audience and didn't much care. "He must be at another hotel." The young man seemed to recover as well with that, though Marilla couldn't help but note the lingering tension in his shoulders as he brushed past them.

"There's not another hotel 'til East Grafton," the receptionist said, but Severus was no longer listening. He gave her a vague expression of thanks and then turned, making for the front door through which the young man had disappeared. Marilla followed him, though she was feeling more and more like an interloper. By the time they'd exited the White Sands Hotel, their quarry was already ten meters down the wide avenue.

"Young man!" Severus called after him. The redhead only walked faster. " _ Shit, _ " he swore under his breath. "Dumbledore!"

"What do you want?" the young man snapped, whirling around to face them.

" You are Albus Dumbledore, are you not?"

"Don't tell me that my family's misfortunes have reached so far as this."

"I need to speak with you."

"I have nothing to say."

"Why are you on Prince Edward Island, Dumbledore? Why come here, of all places?"

"I needed to get away from it. From everything."

"You were angry when I recognized you, but not shocked. You know we get the  _ Daily Prophet _ in Canada."

"Cease harassing me." The young man turned and began to walk away again, faster this time, nearly running.

"I understand, Albus," Severus said. Dumbledore stopped in his tracks.

"No."

"Trust me."

"That's impossible. Nobody understands."

"You are speaking like a child," Severus barked. "Do you think you are the only one to have suffered? To have failed? It’s an old story, Dumbledore, and the sooner you realize that the better.”

“You only know what you read in the papers-”

“I know what it’s like to choose my associates foolishly. I know what it’s like to cause the death of someone I love through my own poor decisions.” Dumbledore went grey.

“How could you-”

“I have sources other than the papers,” Severus said. Marilla had to keep herself from openly expressing her exasperation. It seemed ridiculous to keep information for the sole effect of appearing mysterious. This was just like when he had decided to tell no one his name for over a decade.

“Have you,” the young man paused, licking his lips nervously, “have you spoken with Gellert?”

“Who?” Marilla interrupted. Dumbledore almost jumped, looking at her for the first time since the conversation had begun. 

“Is she a…”

“She knows,” Severus said.

“I know what? What’s going on?”

“You know about magic, of course,” Severus said. 

“Wait a minute. Do you mean to tell me that I’m not  _ supposed _ to know about your… abilities.”

“I won’t pretend to have been the most circumscript,” Severus said dryly, “but, in short, yes.”

“You have been,” Dumbledore said shakily, “flouting  _ international law _ -”

“Yes, I have,” Severus said. “I thought you were a revolutionary.” The young man sputtered, turning red, and Marilla struggled to put this new piece of the story into what she had already known. She was not at all successful.

“I - I was. I don’t know-” Albus Dumbledore shook his head. “Have you been in contact with Gellert? Is that what this is about?”

“No,” Severus said. “I’m here because I’m trying to cut the horror that’s coming off at the root.” Marilla stared at him, not quite able to believe what she was hearing.

“Oughtn’t there be some sort of rules against that?” she said.

“Believe me, the future is such that I could hardly make things worse by meddling,” Severus said.

“I think,” Dumbledore said softly, “that we should take this to a more private venue.”

* * *

“Soon, quite soon, there will be a war in the Muggle world,” Severus said when they had retired to Albus Dumbledore’s hotel room.

“What does this have to do with Gellert?” the young man said.

“Nothing, not in this war. But, nonetheless, I believe that the Magical response to what the Muggles will call the Great War will be one of the factors that leads to our gradual descent into Darkness.”

“You can’t be certain of that,” Dumbledore said. 

“Why not?” Marilla said. “He’s travelled through time.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It is not impossible and you know it,” Severus said. “I come from the year 1998. Between now and then there will be two world-wide Muggle wars on a scale not yet seen and two Magical wars that will bring us beyond the brink of Darkness. If we begin now, hopefully we can mitigate everything."

"Why me?" Dumbledore seemed to have at least accepted that Severus wasn't mad.

"Why not you? It’s your future. You are being given an opportunity that future witches and wizards would kill for. Why wouldn't you take it?”

"Because - Well, you're from the future, surely you know!"

"Know what?" Severus said as though daring the young man to give him an acceptable excuse.

"Don't act as though you are a fool. If you know all - all those things, if you know about my past with Gellert, then you must know that I ought not be entrusted with anything so - so  _ fragile _ as the future."

"I know the future only insofar as it happened while I was in it. You never told me about what your friendship with Gellert Grindelwald eventually led to; I had to piece together that story for myself. I don't know all that will happen if you allow the future to come as it will, but I do know this - we all acted too late. We failed all beings, Magical and Muggle, human and otherwise, on my first go around. We all have a hand in how the chips fall, and if you deny what I plan on giving you - well, I'll let you decide how culpable that makes you in what will come to pass. The Albus Dumbledore I knew would have been horrified at the very thought of ignoring preoffered intelligence, no matter how suspect the source."

"Do you mean to say," Dumbledore said softly, "that I become… involved with the Magical wars."

"More than involved," Severus said, "but that's not what I'm here for."

"Then why? Why come here? Why  _ me _ ?"

"Everyone always says that. Why does everyone always say that?" Severus shook his head. "I have looked at all the evidence, Dumbledore. We cannot continue as we have been, not without the conditions becoming ripe for the wrong sort of revolution."

"And how am I supposed to change that? I am but one man."

"One man who is well-respected among the most exclusive sort of intelligentsia. One man who will, within the next five years, have the ear of both the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the Minister of Magic. You will have the time to cultivate those connections, but when the war comes you must be willing to damage them as well, perhaps beyond repair."

"Who will we be fighting? The goblins? The merpeople?"

"You won't be fighting anyone, and that is precisely the problem. The Muggles will call it the Great War, the War to End All Wars. They will be wrong. More significantly, this will present the Magical World with its first truly great test of the Statute of Secrecy, it's first potentially insurmountable break with Muggles."

"You're acting like we ought to - to become involved with their disputes."

"I said nothing of the sort. I am simply suggesting that we are not so separate from them as we might like to think, and that allowing the line between us to become a rift would, in the end, alienate us in a way that will benefit no one."

"Why? I mean, if there is going to be a Muggle war-"

"There are Muggleborns and Half-Bloods. There are wizards and witches who are more vulnerable to being caught up in the battles of madmen. Most importantly, there is a need for understanding."

"What for?"

"When you can answer that question, then you will truly be the Albus Dumbledore I remember following," Severus said mysteriously.

Later that night, when Severus had used his magic to transport them back to Green Gables and Marilla had made them a late meal of cold ham and bread, she asked him what he had meant about understanding.

"My people think they can avoid the problems of the world by cutting themselves off from it," he said. "All they really manage is to do is make it so that a significant minority of the population is unable to relate to the majority. Their misunderstanding of the Muggle world goes beyond charmingly antiquated technology. They know nothing of the complications of class, gender, race - and they are unable to learn from the Muggles' mistakes and triumphs as a result. That velvet suit is only the smallest symptom of their ignorance. The upcoming war will be the perfect opportunity for Dumbledore to work to change that course."

"What you're talking about… It seems enormous," Marilla said.

"Revolution is both necessary and utterly inevitable at this point in time," Severus said with a shrug. "And the only way to have that revolution is to act now, before worse things come to take up our attention." 

Marilla shivered. She was an old-fashioned sort of Canadian Protestant at the best of times, and she wasn't sure what to make of Severus's obvious zeal. All she could do was love him and hope that the ghosts of his future would stay across the ocean where they belonged.

* * *

Severus was sitting near the edge of the cliff behind Anne and Gilbert’s cottage, where the crashing waves and chilly sea breezes made even Marilla’s old blood quicken and feel wonderfully alive. Her eyesight was nearly gone now, and she picked her way carefully to the dark blob that stood in stark contrast with the green grasses and the brilliant blue of the sky.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” she said, lowering herself to sit beside him.

“I’m not tired,” he said, though his voice said the opposite. Still, Marilla didn’t argue with him.

“It was a good thing you did,” she said instead. “Gilbert says that Joyce would have died if you hadn’t used your cures on her. Thank you.”

“How’s Anne?” he asked, brushing past her gratitude.

“It was a hard labor,” Marilla said. “Still, she’ll be fine. More than fine, since you saved the baby.”

“She named her Joyce?”

“She’s already gotten to nicknaming the child Joy. Nicknames are foolish, I’ve always thought, but I don’t see it doing any harm since she’s so young.” Marilla shifted, letting one of her hands rest over his, squeezing his fingers slightly. “Really, get some sleep.”

“Will you marry me?” 

“What?” She squinted at him, trying to bring his face into focus. “Are you serious?”

“Of course.”

“I’m an old maid!”

“I’m an old bastard, and you don’t see anyone saying I shouldn’t marry on  _ that _ account.”

“What would be the point of it?”

“Nothing,” he said, “except to show to the world what everyone with half their wits already knows: that I love you.” Her already uncertain world blurred further as her eyes filled with tears. “Are you - I didn’t do it right, did I?”

“Don’t be foolish,” she said tartly. “You did it the same way any man would. I just - How much time do we even have? What’s the use of bringing out everyone and-”

“And celebrating? And being happy? What’s the bloody point of life if you don’t allow yourself to even contemplate doing something for the sake of being happy?”

“And how long will it last?”

“Five years? Ten? Who bloody cares! For as long as you’ll have me,” he said, suddenly without a hint of dry wit or irony, “or until death do we part. Which is to say, it will be precisely as it would have been if I’d never had the guts to ask you.” He heaved a sigh. “This was such a mistake.” She felt his hand flex beneath hers, readying itself to push him up, and she clamped down on his wrist.

“Don’t you dare,” she said. “I didn’t say no.” She couldn’t see him clearly, not with her eyesight, but she knew in her heart that he was smiling.

* * *

Fifteen years. She’d had fifteen years with Severus as her husband, which was more than she had ever dared hope for. Even after she went stone blind, even when she drank more of his cures than a king could have repaid, even as she felt the weight of every one of her eighty-six years pressing down on both of them, he never uttered even a hint of regret. She supposed that she would have to be content with that.

Marilla Cuthbert made her peace with death during that last long, lingering sickness, though Severus kept bargaining for every second. She lay in her bed, warm and content, listening to the faint sounds of life outside her room and holding the hand of whoever happened to be sitting by her side.

"Don't let him waste his life," she said to Anne in those last days. "I know him. He'll cut himself off from everyone if you let him."

"Don't worry, Marilla," Anne said. "Go to sleep. I can tell that you're tired."

"He told me things," Marilla said. "The future - He's been trying to change it. Listen to him."

"I will."

"Anne - Anne, I love you. I know I haven't shown it properly, but I-"

"Shh, I know." From the way Anne's voice broke, Marilla could almost see her crying.

"Please be well," Marilla said. "Please be well after I go."

"I will be!" Anne cried out. "Oh, Marilla, I will be! You don't have to worry about that!"

Some unimaginable amount of time later, she felt Severus' hand cover hers. It was thinner and more wrinkled than it had been, but she knew that, if she could have seen, it would have still been covered with those same stains and scars from his cures.

"Did you change it?" she whispered.

"Hm?"

"The future."

"I don't know." His dry lips pressed to the back of her hand. "I have hope."

"Good." Her breath rattled in her chest. Time was running out. "I hope - I hope I wasn't-"

"Never."

"You'll stay with me? I don't want… to die alone." His lips pressed against her again, this time to her cheek. Marilla turned her head so that she could return the kiss, deepening it like a fine old wine. 

"Always," he said. 


	3. Rilla

_ It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. _

_ \- J.R.R. Tolkien,  _ _ The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring _

Uncle Severus was over for dinner when Rilla’s oldest brother decided to break the news that he was planning on going to war. "They are calling for volunteers in town, Father," said Jem. "Scores have joined up already. I'm going in tonight to enlist." The effect on their entire family was immediate, but Rilla was most concerned with Uncle Severus’s reaction.

There had always existed a strange understanding between the two of them. She had, after all, been named after his wife, though Aunt Marilla had died when Rilla was too young to know her really well. Over the course of her fifteen years Rilla had learned that, in addition to being able to cure everything from rheumatism to a broken leg, Uncle Severus had a knack for saying strange and ominous things that always, inevitably turned out to be true. So when Jem stood and made his announcement, Rilla ignored her mother’s protests and her father’s ashen-faced worry and looked to her uncle. 

She didn’t know what she expected - anger, perhaps. He had a sometimes explosive temper. But there was no anger, no shock, just a bone-deep weary sadness that caused his head to fall into his hands.

“Oh, Little Jem,” her mother cried, sounding half broken already. “Oh, no - no - Little Jem-”

“I must go, Mother,” Jem said. “I’m right, am I not, Father?”

“There are some wars that must be fought,” Uncle Severus said suddenly. The whole family - Joy and her husband Pierce, Jem, Walter, Nan and Di, Shirley, Mother and Father - fell still and silent. Even Susan Baker, who had worked for the Blythes for ages and was well accustomed to saying what was on all their minds, didn’t dare interrupt Uncle Severus when he was making one of his pronouncements. “This is not one of them.”

“It’s my duty,” Jem said. “Me and Jerry talked it over last night, and-”

“And if this is your cause it’s a worthless one,” Uncle Severus said, his temper rising suddenly. Jem glared defiantly back at him. “You’re young enough. There will be other fights more worthy of your passion. There already are better fights.”

“England  _ needs  _ us.”

“I don’t see the need to make a fuss about all this,” Susan said placatingly. “Likely as not the war will be over long before Jem gets anywhere near it.”

“No,” said Uncle Severus and Walter at the same time. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Uncle Severus grunted.

“I’d swear you have seer blood in you, boy,” he said. “But you’re right.” The war, which had before seemed almost half hypothetical, seemed to press down on all of them, stifling Rilla’s mouth and lungs like a wet rag.

"This is what she meant," Rilla's mother said breathlessly, looking as though she were about to faint. "This is the future you told her of."

“What future?” Rilla said. “Mother, what’s going on?” Her mother didn’t answer, too busy staring at Uncle Severus in mute horror.

“Jerry and I are going,” Jem said. “Just you try to stop us.” Rilla could pinpoint the precise moment when Uncle Severus’s temper snapped.

“Far be it from me to prevent you from throwing your lives away,” he said acidly. He stood and strode towards the door, his footsteps falling with the heaviness of bells tolling. Rilla jumped up from her place, ignoring her half-finished dinner to follow him.

“ _ Rilla _ ,” Mother said, but Rilla didn’t heed her. She couldn’t. The world, which had before shown her only the same promises it held for every pretty and well-liked sixteen-year-old, suddenly seemed much wider and much colder, and she had a feeling that only Uncle Severus could give her its precise measure.

* * *

“Jem went off to training this morning,” Rilla said a few months later. Uncle Severus grunted over the large copper pot he was stirring. That was another strange thing about Uncle Severus. He knew how to make medicine, medicine that not even her father, Dr. Blythe, could explain. “Is he going to be alright?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know things,” Rilla said. “You say you know things, at least. Is he going to be alright?” Uncle Severus sighed and made his way slowly over to his armchair. Father said that Uncle Severus ought to use a cane, that he’d fall on the stairs and break his neck one of these days, but the old magician seemed content with brewing his cures and ignoring all her father’s advice, saying that if his magic didn’t keep him moving about than he might as well jump in an open grave. Rilla, who didn’t have an overly keen sense of irony, sometimes wished that Uncle Severus was a little less stubborn and a little more practical.

“That’s the curse of being someone like me,” Uncle Severus said. “I only know what I have always known. I know this war in the broadest sense - that it will be called the Great War, that it is only the beginning of what your generation will face. I know none of the specifics.”

“Couldn’t you try to see the future?” Rilla said.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Uncle Severus said. “It doesn’t work like that at all.” There was a long pause, and Rilla almost pressed him further when he shifted in his armchair, eyes fixed on some sight she could not see.

“Uncle Severus?”

“Forty million dead,” he said.

“... What?” Rilla said, her voice nothing more than a small squeak.

“Forty million dead,” Uncle Severus rasped, seemingly overcome by the horror he was seeing. Rilla wondered whether this was what it looked like when you saw the future. It didn’t seem like something she’d want herself. “Forty  _ million _ , and dead not because of some great evil to be defeated but because of the petty squabbling and imperialist  _ bullshit _ of our leaders. Nothing solved, nothing gained, just the pump primed for even more destruction and pain.”

“You sound like Walter,” Rilla said. “Besides, we’re fighting the Germans. They’re marching towards Paris right this moment, the papers say so, and-”

“And were the Allies to have the advantage, they would march on Berlin in the same way, pillaging their way through the countryside and giving the Germans as much a reason to hate them - more, in fact, than we do.”

“You have to be careful of that sort of talk, Uncle Severus,” Rilla said seriously, “especially around Susan. Susan’s just about the most patriotic person in Ingleside, I think.” Uncle Severus sighed.

“That is the problem, Rilla,” he said. “People get so caught up in their nationalistic furvor that they forget they are fighting human beings. It is far too easy to take the actions of individuals and project them onto those you consider enemies, just as it is far too easy to take the actions of your enemies and act as though that gives you permission to mistreat individuals.”

“Are you a pacifist?” Rilla cried out, horrified at the possibility.

“Of course not,” Uncle Severus scoffed, and Rilla sighed in relief. “There will be evil, Rilla. There will be true evil in your lifetime. This, on the other hand, makes me want to take the world leaders, lock them in a small, windowless room, and see who comes out the winner. It would throw the world into chaos, of course, but my  _ God _ would it be satisfying.” Rilla didn’t know what to say to that. Every day new reports came from Europe. They told of the atrocities performed by the Germans - churches burned, families slaughtered, farms seized and then turned to wasteland. She couldn’t understand how Uncle Severus seemed not to think that there  _ was  _ a good side and a bad side. On the other hand, locking the leaders in a small room would mean that Jem and Jerry and so many others wouldn’t have to go.

“But they will go,” she said. “They  _ have _ to go, and what can I do for them?”

“You can do what you can,” Uncle Severus said, “and what you feel is right.”

“What do  _ you _ feel is right?” Rilla asked. Uncle Severus was silent for a long time.

“I will do what I must,” he said softly, so soft that Rilla wasn’t sure if he had meant for her to hear. She shivered. The certainty in his voice was unlike anything she had ever heard before, and it shook her to her core.

* * *

As news from across the sea meandered from bad to worse, Rilla threw herself into organizing the Junior Red Cross. Mother had suggested it, and Rilla hated how much comfort it brought her. It was like Uncle Severus had said: she could do what she could, and she didn’t think even  _ he _ could have spun the work of the Junior Reds into some kind of bad thing. If she wasn’t at a meeting, she was taking up a collection. If she wasn’t taking up a collection, she was knitting socks and sewing bed sheets. Anything was better than sitting around, useless, waiting for the phone to ring with terrible news or a letter from Jem to arrive at the post office. But as Rilla slowly found a new sense of balance and routine even when the world had been turned upside down, Walter sunk deeper and deeper into his dark moods.

"I'm afraid our old world has come to an end, Rilla,” he said one evening as Rilla strained to count her stitches in the lamplight. “We've got to face that fact."

“Everything ends,” Rilla said bluntly. “Now, are you going to do something useful? Because if not, I would rather not have you complaining when I’m trying to knit these socks. You  _ know _ I’ve never been very good at socks.”

“You’re sounding more like Uncle Severus every day.”

“Well, I like talking with him,” she said. Walter smiled sadly. “Oh, get that look off your face.”

“I envy Jem,” he said.

“Envy Jem!” Rilla almost dropped her knitting. “Walter, surely - surely you don’t want to go too!”

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t want to go. And that’s the trouble, Rilla. I’m afraid to go. I’m a coward.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rilla snapped. “Anyone would be afraid to go. Besides, Uncle Severus says-”

“Why do you listen to what he says?”

“Mother does,” Rilla said loyally. “And Aunt Marilla did.” She only knew Aunt Marilla’s opinions through hearsay, but that had to have been true. Even though she had only been a child at the time, she could remember watching Uncle Severus furiously mixing his cures in the Green Gables kitchen until Mother had thrown him out, insisting that man could not live on potions alone. And Mother had said that Aunt Marilla had warned her of something, some horrible future that Rilla had now been afforded a glimpse at. She couldn’t break faith with her uncle now.

“I wouldn’t mind dying if it didn’t hurt,” Walter said.

“Don’t say that.”

“I don’t think I’m afraid of death itself. It’s just - To feel that pain and keep dying! Rilla, I’ve always been afraid of pain, you know that. And to think - I could be mangled or - or blinded. I don’t think I could stand being blinded. To never see the beauty of the world again - moonlight on the hills of Ingleside - the stars twinkling through the fir trees - mist on the gulf.”

“You won’t be blinded if you don’t join up,” Rilla said. “Besides, there will be other fights.”  _ That _ was something that Uncle Severus was certain of, and even if she didn’t know what to think of his other opinions about the war she knew enough to trust in his premonitions.

“But this one is ours!” He jumped up and began to pace. Rilla’s eyes followed him, her knitting now completely forgotten. “I ought to go,” he muttered over and over again. “I ought to want to go.” Rilla opened her mouth to speak, to dissuade him from the course that he was trying so desperately to convince himself was the right one, but before she could say a word the door opened.

“Rilla,” said Uncle Severus, standing in the doorway in his long, black cloak. Rilla jumped up from her seat as though a general had called her to attention.

“Uncle Severus!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Your Junior Red Cross,” he said. Rilla puffed up in pride to hear the Junior Reds referred to as  _ hers _ . “Where do you keep the items you intend to send to the front?”

“In Jem’s old room,” she said. It suddenly felt significant, symbolic. Uncle Severus swept up the stairs without a word, and Rilla hurried to follow him, with Walter trailing a moment later. She stopped in the doorway, staring as Uncle Severus waved a stick over the blankets and mittens and socks and bedsheets, muttering under his breath in some language that sounded distinctly foreign. Her mind instantly jumped to dastardly Huns in faraway Europe, though it seemed a bit silly to imagine Uncle Severus as one of  _ them. _

“What are you doing?” she said, the words coming out more curious than accusatory.

“They’re only a few simple spells,” he said, “and unfortunately they’ll wear away over time. A charm to keep the socks warm and dry, an enchantment for untroubled and dreamless sleep, a small - small spell of protection. I can’t do more.”

“Why not?” Rilla said. “Why couldn’t you, I don’t know, make the bullets bounce right off of them?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Uncle Severus said, regret clouding his voice. “Spells of Transference - that is, spells put into an object that is then passively carried on one’s person - are more effective the longer they are in contact with that which they are transferring the magic onto. The protection - it may slow bleeding out, it may prevent infection, but it cannot stop a bullet. The magic won’t transfer in time.”

“Oh,” Rilla said. “Could you - Could you do the same to the things I made for Jem? I mean, I know I’m supposed to be selflessly helping the cause and the war effort and all that, but I couldn’t - I just wanted to make sure he got some of it.”

“Of course,” Uncle Severus said. He straightened up from where he had been bending over the items for the front. Then he looked right at Rilla, a piercing, horribly conflicted look. He seemed like a man who was about to plead guilty to a crime that would send him to the gallows.

“What is it, Uncle Severus?” Rilla said. He shifted, folded his hands behind his back, and sighed.

“I will be leaving soon,” he said. Rilla let out a little gasp. She heard Walter’s hand slam into the side of the doorframe behind her, and his sudden, uncharacteristic anger made her jump.

“What?” Walter said. “Leaving? You can’t!”

“I think you will find,” Uncle Severus growled, “that I am quite capable of doing whatever I think is best.”

“Where will you be going?” Rilla asked.

“That depends on what must be done,” he said. “England first; I have… well, one ally there. If I cannot be effective there, then I will begin working in Europe.”

“But you can’t!” Rilla said.

“Why not?”

“There’s a war!”

“All the more reason to act,” Uncle Severus said. “All the more reason to fight. If I am able to get them to listen to me, well…” He trailed off. “Many deaths might be prevented.”

“Then why are you saying this isn’t  _ my _ fight?” Walter said. “If you’re working to save the lives of good British soldiers-”

“I never said that I was only saving the lives of  _ British _ soldiers.” Walter opened his mouth and then shut it again.

“I don’t understand,” he said at last.

“No,” said Uncle Severus. “You don’t. Underneath the artificial borders that divide up the world, we are all human beings, and human life is always worth preserving.”

“Even the Germans?” Walter demanded.

“Even,” Rilla said slowly, “the - the evil you keep talking about?” Uncle Severus’s jaw clenched, and for a moment Rilla thought that he wouldn’t answer them.

“Yes,” he said at last, “even the evil.” The way he said it sounded strange, as though even he felt conflicted over his own words. “Not at the expense of - of others, but if life can be preserved I must preserve it.”

After Uncle Severus left that night, Rilla and Walter sat in silence for a long time, both caught up in their own thoughts and horrible imaginings. Rilla was once again caught between fear and pride, but the pride felt somehow more urgent now. She couldn’t imagine her old, shuffling uncle as any sort of warrior, but there was something in the steady assurance in his voice, in the utter confidence he had in his path, that made her suspect this was but the last great stand in a life full of them. She didn’t know every detail, and yet she felt proud of him.

“I must go now,” Walter said at last, shortly after the clock had struck midnight.

“Really?” Rilla said.

“Yes,” he said. “Jem has gone; Uncle Severus is going. If I don’t go now…” He sighed. “I will miss you, Rilla.” She nodded. Any hesitation, any argument was nothing now. There was only their dark and uncertain future.

* * *

After Walter and Uncle Severus followed Jem across the ocean, Rilla’s life seemed even more defined by the moments where Susan or Mother came back from the post office with the mail. At first it was only Jem, speaking with forced humor about the trenches and the firefights. Then Walter’s letters started trickling in.

_ It isn’t that I don’t think the training is necessary, _ he wrote in one of his first letters _ , nor that I don’t appreciate learning how to shoot and do my duty. But all anyone can talk about is what awaits us in France: how many Huns they will kill, how heroic they will be, how they will be the ones to break through the enemy line and send them running back to Berlin. I want to scream at them that it won’t be like that, that I’ve had letters from my brother and that it is terrible, terrible… But I keep my silence. I can’t bear to break their illusions. So many of them are younger than I am, Rilla. There’s one boy who lied about his age - he’s only fifteen. When I think about him in those trenches, I feel ill, and yet how I wish this in-between time could be over! _

For the first few weeks Rilla thought that Uncle Severus might not write them at all. She had the vague idea that he was doing something very dangerous and secretive and brave, and so perhaps he didn’t have access to the Army post as Jem and Walter did. But when the summer of 1915 had almost waned, shortly after Warsaw had fallen and Walter had been sent away to the trenches at last, Rilla was woken one morning to a rapping on her window-pane.

“What the-” she began sleepily, but her annoyed confusion was quickly replaced by shock. At her window was a huge, weather-beaten eagle-owl that glared at her with a strange sense of purpose. Even more strange, there was an envelope tied to one of its legs. Rilla opened the window, and the owl held out its leg. She untied the envelope numbly, uncertain of what she was seeing or even whether this wasn’t some strange dream. When she saw the handwriting on the envelope, however, she tore it open with a hope that chased away all her confusion.

_ Rilla,  _ it read,

_ I hope that Mordred hasn’t startled you too much. I gave him specific instructions to bring this to you in private, but you can never quite tell with hired owls. As you might have gathered, this is the primary means of magical communication at long distances, and it is a good deal more reliable than the Muggle - that is, the non-magical - post at the moment. _

_ My contact in England has been helpful, but the Ministry seems unwilling to take action no matter how much a respected but ordinary scholar tells them that intervening in this Muggle war will prevent much tragedy. It is unfortunate, but I should have suspected that this was likely. I must apologize, Rilla, for writing about magical politics when you were no doubt expecting a more personal letter. I have no one here, besides that one contact I spoke of, who I can talk to with any expectation of privacy or, indeed, of understanding. _

_ So I will be going to Europe. I know that the French magicals have already been petitioning the rest of us to intervene somehow, though the response from the rest of the world has been lukewarm at best. I also know that the East has been restless, so I will go there first and try to get the lay of the land. I am beginning to doubt that the groundwork I did before moving to Prince Edward Island made any difference at all, and yet I must persist. If I can see that the first steps towards all I have seen have been changed, perhaps the rest will fall into place by the time I am done.  _

_ Forgive me. I’m too morose tonight. I’ll be sending this to you presently. Keep fighting, Rilla. With any luck, my work will be done here soon. _

_ Love, _

_ Your Uncle Severus _

By the end of the letter, Rilla was holding the paper so hard it almost tore. She was gripped with tremendous fear and relief. Fear, because her Uncle Severus was going into even more dangerous territory than England. Relief, because at least she now knew that he was alive thus far. She only understood most of what he said in the vaguest of terms, but she could rest easy knowing that  _ he _ at least understood what was going on beneath the surface of the war. If it took magic to bring Jem and Walter back safely, she would take it. Their side needed all the help they could get with the Germans on their way to victory.

* * *

When Rilla heard the dogs howling out in the valley, she knew that something terrible had happened. The conviction was somehow immutable, no matter how the days stretched on for almost a week without any worse news than the usual. But then, late in the afternoon, her father came to her, looking drawn and old and half-broken with grief. It was the last day of September, 1916, and Walter had fallen at Courcelette.

She couldn’t cry, not that night, no matter how hard she tried. It felt impossible to think that her brother was gone. Gone! She couldn’t even think the word “dead.” He had been so far away for the past year that she knew she would spend the rest of the war waiting for his letters. She tried repeating it to herself over and over - “Walter’s gone, he’s gone, he’s never coming back” - but the words didn’t stick.

Then his last letter came.

There was an envelope addressed to her inside the larger envelope. She tore into it eagerly, half expecting it to be addressed after Courcelette, for him to say that there had been a mistake and he had made it out of battle safe and whole. Her hopes, only half believed in, were dashed when she read the first sentence.

_ We're going over the top tomorrow, Rilla. _

“No,” she whispered in weak denial, but she couldn’t stop from reading on.

_ There are some things I want to say before - well, before. My time is coming, I am sure of it. And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that. I've won my own freedom here - freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of anything again - not of death - nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face, for it could never be beautiful for me again. There would always be such horrible things to remember, things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. I could never forget them. But whether it's life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla, and I am not sorry that I came. _

_ I’ve been waiting for an owl from Uncle Severus for ages now. I think the guns have scared it away. If there’s one thing I regret, it’s not being able to tell him that he was wrong. I know he’s said so many times that this isn’t a war worth dying for, but, oh, RIlla, I think it is. We aren’t fighting just for the Island or for England but for all mankind, so that future generations might know the peace that we once found deep in the valleys of Ingleside. In fact, you send him this - this or a copy of this, I mean. I ought to get in the last word at some point with him. _

_ Don’t cry for me, Rilla. Or, rather, cry for me if you need to cry, but then laugh and be joyful. When this war is won, my spirit will travel across the ocean, and I will be able to watch as you marry and raise your children to keep faith with us, we happy few who laid down our lives to ensure that those left behind would see a shining new day.  _

_ I meant to write more - but I’ve spent the time trying to get this just right. Tomorrow, we go over the top, and I’ll think of you, you and Mother and Father - and Nan and Di and Shirley and Susan and Joy, all those who wait for me and who I fight for. I’ll even think of Uncle Severus, stubborn old fool that he is. Keep faith with me, Rilla, and don’t despair. And so - goodnight. We go over the top at dawn. _

_ Your brother, _

_ Walter _

FInally,  _ finally _ , Rilla was able to cry. She was able to  _ sob _ , deep, wrenching sobs that made her half afraid of her own emotion. For nearly an hour she felt as though she would never stop crying, and then, when her outpouring of emotion began to taper off, she felt as though she could never follow Walter’s last request. She couldn’t help but despair.

And so, instead, she wrote to the only person she knew would understand.

_ Uncle Severus _ , she wrote,

_ I don’t know how to write this to you, so I will simply say it right out - Walter fell at Courcelette. His last letter came in the mail today. He asked me to send it to you, and so I am going to do so, but I don’t know if I can follow his last instructions beyond that one thing. _

_ He asked me to keep faith, but how can I? You’ve said this war is pointless, that there will be others, and for the first time I think I believe you. He asked me not to despair, but I don’t think I can ever be happy again. I was carrying on alright before, but the letter - Oh, the letter makes it too real! He’s gone, he’s dead, he’s never coming back. Our last day together before he left was our last day together for forever, and now when I search my memory I cannot even remember what he said to me that day. _

_ Uncle Severus, what am I supposed to do now? You’re doing so many important things, and Jem is fighting - fighting hard. Father works himself to death, Mother seems almost completely broken by this latest blow, and I am here - unable to help them, unable to help you, unable to even begin to help myself.  _

_ And now I just want to know  _ why _? Why did Walter have to die? Why is this war dragging on and on with no end in sight? What have we to look forward to, now that the worst has happened and you tell me worse still is coming? _

_ I need a light, Uncle Severus. Sometimes I almost wish I had died as an infant, if only so that I would not have to live in such times. _

_ Rilla _

By the time she had finished her letter, it was late in the evening. Rilla stood, sealed the letter, and walked out into the darkness. The woods, which had always seemed so forbidding at night, held no fear for her now. She stumbled down, down, down into the valley, where she and her siblings had played as children and which now held no joy for her now. She stood at the bottom, listening to the night noises - the warbling of the creek, the creaking of branches. She waited until she heard the deep, soft hoots of a Great Horned Owl, and then she turned to face the bird.

“Will you take this for me?” she whispered, trusting that her voice would carry to it if this was meant to be. “Will you take this to my uncle?” The owl swooped down from the trees on silent wings, and Rilla flinched. She held out the letter, shaking slightly, and the bird took it gently in its beak. “Thank you.” The owl flew away in the night, and Rilla began her slow, long climb back out of the valley.

It took almost a week for the bird to return, looking wind-torn and bedraggled, with an envelope bearing her uncle’s handwriting. Rilla tore it open, hoping beyond hope that he would say there was some way out of this Gordian knot of sorrow and pain.

_ Rilla, _ her uncle had written

_ A wise man will someday write that we cannot choose the times in which we live, only what we do with the time given to us. A wise woman will someday sing that those who have suffered understand suffering and thereby extend their hands. Walter’s death is a terrible thing, and there is no true comfort I can give you. I can give only the assurance that you will survive this. You will survive this, and you will survive with an empathy that will allow you to do the right thing when the time comes to stand. _

* * *

Despite the despair and the heartbreak, life went on. It was almost frightening how easily it went on, how they could attend to class and church and work and errands, and the only sign that anything was amiss was the rationing. Sometimes it made Rilla want to scream - Didn't anyone remember there was a war on? Didn't anyone notice the empty spaces in the pews and faces in town? Didn’t anyone care that her brother was gone, gone forever, and that she had another brother and an uncle who might very well follow him? But then there would be another letter, another phone call, another coffin-shaped box sent through the post, and the war would begin all over again.

Shirley had decided that he was going to join the Air Force just as soon as he became old enough. He had none of the bravado of Jem or the poetic conviction of Walter, just a firm and stoic resignation to the necessity of doing a dirty job. Rilla had wanted to argue with him, to  _ show _ him that Mother was already coming apart at the seams and Father never smiled anymore and leaving would mean that Rilla would be the last of the Blythe children, the very last at the Home Front with her sisters married and her brothers off to fight in the war, and she wasn't sure if she would be able to hold the line. She  _ knew _ she wouldn’t be able to hold the line if another of her brothers fell across the sea.

Instead, she held her tongue. This was Shirley's decision, Shirley's war, even if three brothers at the front felt like more than she could bear. She resigned herself to holding things together on her own, even though it felt like there was nothing left to hold together for. The Junior Red Cross was doing what they could, but it felt so small in the face of the dispatches from Europe that came every day in the paper. She tried to be strong for Mother and Father and Susan, but each passing day wore her down a little more.

She lived for the mail, for Jem's letters and the hope that the daily paper sometimes brought. More than that, she lived for the owls.

_ It's a bloody mess no matter how you look at it, but especially in France and Poland. I managed to whisper in the right ears, and the International Confederation of Wizards has agreed that intervening on behalf of the affected witches and wizards is necessary. That, at least, is a relief and may change much about the discontent already fermenting. Unfortunately, I find myself hitting a wall when it comes to obtaining the promise of more certain prospects for the Muggle world. The Eastern Front requires a deft touch at the moment, especially because the events that will happen this October will do much to destroy Magical-Muggle relations in that part of Europe.  _

_ What will happen in October? What’s going on that I can’t see?  _ she had written back.

_ My apologies for alarming you in my last note. I find my task more and more arduous these days, and I sometimes forget that your concerns are quite immediate and visceral. Rest assured that the events that will happen have less effect than one would expect on the Western Front. _

In late October, Rilla understood that the news Uncle Severus had warned her of had come to pass when she saw Father’s face lose all color as he read the paper one Tuesday morning.

“What is it, Father?” she said. 

“The Russians are withdrawing,” he said quietly. What little levity could be found in the atmosphere froze and shattered like spun sugar glass. “They’re saying the Tsar is facing a revolt, and therefore he is suing for peace. It’s all over now.” Mother grew very stoney-faced and pale, while Susan muttered “it’s not so, it’s not so” over and over with no sense of conviction. Even Rilla let herself have a moment of despair, for it really did seem as though the Russians leaving signaled an end to all hope. “I’m afraid-”

“Don’t say that,” Rilla said suddenly. All the few remaining faces of her family stared at her. “It isn’t over, not yet.”

“With the Eastern Front collapsing, there will be nothing to distract the Kaiser from our boys in France,” Susan said. “Likely as not he’ll smash through the lines, and then we’ll be ruined.”

“The United States entered the war months ago,” Rilla argued.

“And a fat lot of good they’ve done so far,” Susan snapped. 

“We have to keep faith,” Rilla said decidedly. “If we despair now, we might as well just surrender and have it done with. We have to keep sewing and knitting and raising money and writing letters, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I sometimes wonder whether all our efforts are in vain,” Mother said softly. “I don’t like to think of it, but it seems impossible that anything we do could help them over there.”

“Uncle Severus said that there will be other wars,” Rilla said with a small shrug. “I know that doesn’t seem like much, but I’ve begun to find it very comforting. This dark night shall pass, and the next one, and the next one. Peace will come. No war can last forever.” She could only hope that what she said was really true. Uncle Severus’s assurances rang more hollow by the day, and yet still she clung to them. They seemed the last thing that could keep her from losing her faith entirely.

* * *

It was almost Christmas when Rilla was awoken late at night by a loud crack. She jerked up in her bed, fumbling around her bedside table for matches and her candle. When she finally lit it, she almost made it go out again in her excitement. Standing across the room, as real as anything, was her Uncle Severus.

“Rilla,” he said. She jumped out of bed and ran over to hug him, almost knocking him over. He looked older than she had ever seen him, thinner too, with a bone-deep sorrow that had settled in the lines of his face and the deep pits of his eyes. She held him tight, burying her face in his chest and praying to whoever would listen that this wasn’t some bizzare dream.

“Uncle Severus!” she cried out. “Oh, you’re back! You’re back!” Uncle Severus gently disentangled her from his waist.

“Only for a few hours,” he said. Rilla felt her heart drop, but the blood in her veins was still buzzing with hope.

“But you’ve made it so the war’s almost over, right? You and Jem and Shirley will be back home soon?”

“The war will end,” Uncle Severus said. “I’ve managed to convince the ICW to intervene, even though that will almost certainly destroy the Magical world as it exists now. Jem and Shirley will come home to you within the month, I promise.” Rilla’s heart had, at this point, turned into a stone that sat, cold and heavy, in the pit of her stomach.

“But not you,” she said. Uncle Severus shook his head.

“I had to explain to them how I had obtained my knowledge of the future.  _ All _ of it. My past… it’s all caught up with me now. If you knew half the details, you’d agree with their decision.”

“Their - Their decision?”

“Their punishment,” Uncle Severus said in a tone that confirmed the worst of Rilla’s suspicions.

“When are you going to…”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“You could stay here,” Rilla said. “They wouldn’t think to look here, in Ingleside.”

“And put you and your family in danger? Never. Besides,” he said, “I’ve done what I set out to do. I fled to the past in hopes of changing things, of creating a better future, and I’ve certainly managed that. In a few short weeks, the separation between our worlds will cease to exist and the gulf that birthed monsters in my time will be destroyed as well. This will come with its own challenges, no doubt, but I can’t imagine it creating something worse.”

“What are they going to do to you?” Rilla asked. Uncle Severus sighed.

“They’re sending me back to where I came from. A simple proposition, when you have some of the most powerful and magically talented witches and wizards in the world to do it. At the time I was facing life in prison or - or worse. Now…” 

“Now?”

“Now I don’t even know if going back is possible. If it is, at least I’ll get to see what I’ve managed to accomplish here.”

“But you - you - you  _ saved _ people.” She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks, but she made no attempt to wipe them away. “You ended a  _ war _ . Surely that deserves  _ some _ consideration.” This time it was Uncle Severus who enfolded her in a hug.

“Don’t cry for me, Rilla,” he said, though his voice was so heavy that she expected he was close to crying himself. “I stole fifty years, years that I should not have spent as comfortably or as happily as I did. I know you don’t understand this now, but there are some things that cannot be erased. I’ve done my best to make things better, to change the circumstances that surrounded my own horrible deeds, and I suppose that’s as close to erasing as it gets, but I cannot be forgiven. I  _ should _ not be forgiven.”

“I forgive you,” Rilla said.

“You’re not-”

“No, I’m not,” she said, “but I am someone who you helped, a lot, and I’m saying that you are able to be forgiven.”

“It’s not your decision.”

“But it’s still the decision I’m making,” she said. She stepped back from him, looking up at his face. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.”

“I-” She didn’t know what else to say. I love you? Goodbye? None of it was enough. “You should talk to Mother.”

“I’ve always been a bit of a coward.”

“Don’t say that. You’re brave, probably braver than anyone I’ve ever met. You went into the war zone and now you’re going to- You’re not a coward.”

“I’m glad to hear that you think that.” Uncle Severus sighed. “I have to go back now.” Rilla grabbed onto the sleeve of his robe.

“Take me with you. I can tell them - I can tell them not to do it.” He took her hand and held it tightly, his hands trembling.

“No,” he said, and then, “Goodbye.” He dropped her hand and disappeared, leaving only a  _ crack _ and the faint smell of sulphur. Rilla gulped, squeezed shut her eyes, stumbled back into the bed, and finally allowed herself to cry.

One way or another, her Uncle Severus was gone.

* * *

Three weeks later, the world reeled as a secret society of magicians revealed themselves and immediately put a stop to the fighting. A month later, they heard that the soldiers would slowly begin to be brought back from the front.

It took until mid-March, when the snow had almost melted and the smell of spring had begun to fill the hills and valleys of Ingleside, for Jem and Shirley to arrive home on the evening train. Rilla greeted them with tear-filled eyes, tears of joy and yet of sadness. Walter had fallen. Uncle Severus was gone forever. Peace reigned in Ingleside, peace and happiness, and Rilla resolved to honor what it had cost them.

She would cry for them, but then she would be glad and joyful. She would not despair, but neither would she become complacent. Even with all that he had done to help them, Uncle Severus’s prophecy of great evil may still come to pass.

Rilla would keep faith with him if it did.


End file.
